


we were all brought here on the same tide

by surgicalstainless



Series: tidal [2]
Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: AU, Chuck Lives, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and then Angst and then a LOT more Fluff, Friendship, Gen, Raleigh has good ideas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-06
Updated: 2013-12-06
Packaged: 2018-01-03 16:02:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1072407
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/surgicalstainless/pseuds/surgicalstainless
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chuck Hansen was fourteen the first time he fell in love, and the object of his affections was a jaeger.</p><p>Don't laugh.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we were all brought here on the same tide

 

 

 

Chuck Hansen was fourteen the first time he fell in love, and the object of his affections was a jaeger.

Don't laugh.

She was a beautiful lady in blue dress, and she'd just done a dance with a great dirty brute in Los Angeles. Her pilots were young, and smiling, and they fought with creativity and grace. Chuck Hansen loved Gipsy Danger so much he was angry about it.

But that was a long time ago, now.

 

***

 

It was Mori and Becket who sprang him from sickbay in the end. 

All his ranting and pleading and threatening and cajoling, and the Heroes of the Fucking Breach just put their game faces on (sad and forlorn and really, really responsible, respectively) and — voila! Release papers! 

Of course, all three of them had to listen to this long, boring lecture about how he was not allowed to do, basically, anything fun for the next forever, and to dire warnings about how he would probably collapse in a helpless swoon the second he set a toe past sickbay doors. Whatever. Chuck was mostly just nodding in all the pauses. Becket still had his responsible face on, Chuck figured he'd get the important bits from him later.

Then there were  _so many_  checkup appointments to schedule, and the ritual handing-over of the bag of pills. By this point Chuck was all but edging furtively towards the doors mid-harangue — then he was freeee! Chuck felt a little bit like that guy in that one movie who dug his way out of prison with a spoon after being wrongfully imprisoned all those years.

Only instead of starting a new life with a new identity, he was going to walk to his room on the other side of the Shatterdome, and then watch movies with his dog. Maybe with Mori and Becket, too, if they didn't have anything else to do. Mako had a pretty good movie collection. You'd never know to look at her, the piratical minx.

...Becket cast him a side-eyed look just then, walking down the hall carrying his bag of pills for him. Fuck, it was possible he'd said some of that stuff out loud. He was really happy to be out, okay? And yes, he was aware that sometimes he talked like his mouth-brain filter should have been replaced 10,000 miles ago, but —

— come to think of it, Becket had never known Chuck when he wasn't an nervy, stressed-out ball of I'm Too Young To Die rage. It was a wonder there hadn't been more punching, when you put it like that.

How long had they been walking? Chuck didn't remember the Shatterdome being quite this big. Was it usually fifteen miles from the sickbay to the residential wing? That seemed like piss-poor planning, if you asked him.

“Are we lost, Becket?” Blaming Becket seemed safe enough. But Becket just squinted at him, and from his other side, Mako smiled at him gently.

“A shortcut,” she insisted. “It is less crowded, more direct. We thought you would be eager to return to your bunk.”

“Well, yeah, of course,” Chuck returned, because  _duh_ , “but aren't shortcuts actually supposed to be  _shorter?_ ”

On Chuck's left, Becket appeared to be rolling his eyes. He couldn't be sure, though, because Mako had taken his arm and was steering him decisively to a nearby set of steps. “Would you like to sit down and rest, Mr. Hansen?”

“What? No! I'm not tired! I'm a bloody Ranger, I think I can walk to my own bunk without — yeah, maybe.” And Chuck collapsed not-entirely-gracefully onto the bottom stair, because  _fuck_. “Just for a minute.”

“You are anemic, Chuck,” Mako informed him in her soft I'm Always Right voice, “and you have been in bed for a week. Regaining your stamina will take time.” She sat on the step beside him, much more gracefully, and after a moment's hesitation, Becket joined them.

“What are we going to watch?” Becket startled Chuck out of his thoughts (...lying around in bed for a week, it was a holiday, I deserve a bloody holiday don't you think, huffing and puffing down the hallway like an old man, like to see them...) with a total non sequitur, and then gazed at him all blonde and expectant. Chuck gave himself a few moments to regroup before he remembered his comment about movie watching, earlier. Oh.

“Um...”

Had Chuck really called Mako Mori a “piratical minx” out loud? He couldn't even blame the good painkillers, because he wasn't on any. Between that and his smart-arse crack about shortcuts, Chuck was probably going to be in for it later.

“I was gonna let Mako choose? She's got the best movies!”

That might have sounded a little desperate. Mako's expression didn't change; she just nodded in acknowledgement. Chuck was halfway convinced that was the Mori equivalent of bowing politely and plotting her revenge for a more convenient time. Just not, hopefully, until he'd gotten over having to rest in the hallways like a geezer. Chuck found he was sweating. That was totally because he was tired from walking, and not because he was afraid of Mako.

Or should that be the other way around?

***

When Chuck next moved, to heave himself back to his feet, he found Becket had beaten him to it. He was standing there like a blond monolith, hand extended, offering to help Chuck up. 

Chuck peered at the hand with suspicion. The last time it had been this close to his face, it had been fist-shaped and on a collision course with his nose. (Chuck flirted with a brief temptation to say something really offensive, for old times' sake.) Yet here Becket was, waiting patiently. His jaw was still clenched, but Chuck rather suspected it was because he was trying not to laugh. Chuck was probably crosseyed by now. 

What the hell, he thought, and took the hand.

The three Rangers resumed their stately progress down what Chuck eventually recognized as one of the back hallways to the jaeger bays.

“We  _are_  lost, aren't we, Becket?” (Blaming Becket, still safer.) “Admit it! No way this route is 'less crowded...'” Chuck's words trailed off as they passed though the huge steel doors and into an echoing, cavernous space. “Fuck me,” he breathed.

The jaeger bays were a mausoleum now. 

The last time he'd been there, for Pentecost's big speech, the floor had been packed. Everyone (and his dog) had been there, even if they didn't have a good reason, just wanting to share in those last fraught moments before the end. Striker had stood just over  _there_ , her dedicated crew still crawling over her with last-minute adjustments, techies from all different teams so eager to help out...

They'd all gone, like rats from a ship. Chuck supposed that wasn't quite fair; no point sticking around if you were a jaeger tech with no jaeger to work on, but still. No voices called halloes and warnings, no engines ground and beeped and rumbled. The metal clang of tools and armor plating echoed only in his memory. Chuck stumbled over to the nearest packing crate and sat down heavily, and the sound was loud across the empty space.

He told himself to breathe, just breathe, and that sound was loud too, high-pitched and too fast. Right across from him was the vacant bay that should have held Cherno Alpha, now silent, dark and brooding. Steadfast, that had been the Kaidonovskys, the northern bulwark on whom the other rangers unthinkingly relied. But Sasha and Aleksis both had independently slipped him a flask of vodka after that drop in Ho Chi Minh, because it didn't seem right to them that you could be old enough to save the world and still not allowed to drink.

Just  _there_ , proud Crimson Typhoon once stood. Striker and Crimson had taken down a kaiju together just months ago, and Chuck hadn't thought he'd ever get tired of watching that cool three-armed attack. The basketball hoop mounted beside Crimson's footprint seemed cruelly forlorn, without its brothers always gathered there for skirmish.

He didn't turn to look, but he could feel the blank space at his back that did not now house Gipsy Danger. He didn't turn, because he wasn't sure he could bear it. Striker had been his faithful mount through every battle; he had spent thousands of hours carefully building and rebuilding Striker's joints, nerves and muscles — he knew and loved and mourned his jaeger, and yet. Striker Eureka had been made for Chuck to pilot, but Chuck had made himself a pilot because of Gipsy Danger.

Nothing can ever really replace your first love, and Chuck did not turn around.

He felt the crate shift as more weight settled onto it, Raleigh's bulk a warm presence to his left, Mako a slighter pressure against his right shoulder. They had both loved Gipsy too, Chuck reminded himself. In this, at least, they were family. Even so, there didn't seem to be anything to say, and he was glad they didn't try.

The hollow bays looked to Chuck like yawning empty graves, no funeral ever forthcoming. The last of the Rangers sat there, dwarfed by the space, witnesses. 

An age later, Mako shifted. She and Raleigh pulled him upright, a hand under each of his arms, made sure he was steady again. “We should not have come this way,” Mako said, her accent soft and precise.

Chuck thought about that as they started out across the floor, though he knew what she had meant. “Nah,” he said at last, “none of us ever really had any choice.”

Shoulder to shoulder, they crossed the space, and left it cold and echoing at their backs.

***

By the time they finally made it to his bunk, Chuck's spirit was beginning to return, but his energy was completely gone. It was all he could do to flop on his bed (at last!) and just  _be_  for a bit. He felt like an old, worn dishtowel that had been wrung out and tossed aside, and he'd never been happier to stare at a ceiling before.

Max was there waiting for him. The dog did his best to help by standing on Chuck's chest and slobbering all over, but Chuck couldn't muster any enthusiasm, and the welcome fell flat. Becket lured Max away with the promise of a consolation belly rub (what was the world coming to when Raleigh Becket had to rescue him from his own dog?), and Chuck lay and looked at the back of his eyelids for a while.

It was quiet in the little room, but a living quiet, filled with the small sounds of those present. Mako examined the books on his shelves — mostly mechanical texts — and smirked at the handmade Ceramander plushie perched on his desk. ( _What?_  It had been given to him in Brisbane by a fan, a young and beautiful and very  _grateful_  fan, if you know what he means, and it's actually pretty cute for a kaiju.) Becket was crouched on the ground worming his way into Max's good graces. He, too, took in the room between belly rubs. Chuck watched Becket's eyes flicker from Striker's schematics to puppy pictures of Max, and then slide right over the blank space on the wall above the head of his bed. For years, over every bunk, and in every Shatterdome, that space had proudly borne a battered poster of Gipsy Danger. Not since Knifehead, though. Chuck wondered if he didn't still have it, somewhere.

The silence was broken by a chorus of pops and creaks from every single one of Becket's joints as he stood up from his crouch. Cripes, maybe Chuck didn't feel so old after all. He was just considering which senior citizen joke to deploy when Becket prompted, “So, movie?”

“What,  _now?_ ” Apparently Chuck's brain was anemic, too.  

Mako's smirk was positively serrated. “Unless you'd rather spar instead.” 

Chuck waved a weak one-finger salute in her direction. She shot him a look that said “I thought so,” and disappeared in the direction of her own room. 

Becket was hot on her heels. “I'll get snacks,” he muttered, leaving Chuck still flopped on his bed like a limp fish. 

It was weird, being in his bunk again, Chuck mused in the momentary solitude. He hadn't been here since before their run at the Breach, and he'd been in a hurry then. As he recalled it, the place had been left in quite a state — bed unmade, clothes thrown over the chair, floor strewn with paperwork and socks and Max's slobbery tennis balls. He hadn't really thought he'd be back. Someone had been in to tidy, by the looks of it, and — he took a breath — his sheets smelled like lavender, not dog. Well, Chuck thought. Perks.

***

Mako was setting up her laptop by the time Becket reappeared, bearing a laden tray. He had tea for all of them, popcorn in a bowl (Chuck assumed that would mostly go to Max), and a plate of chocolate and jelly-filled biscuits he gave to Mako. To Chuck, he handed —

“Creamed  _spinach?_  Have you completely lost the plot?”

“You're anemic, Hansen. You need the iron.” Becket's face was puppy-dog earnest, but Chuck could swear he saw laughter flickering in the bastard's eyes. If looks could kill, Raleigh Becket would be dead on the spot, or at least experiencing a serious coughing fit. Who the hell did he think he was, Popeye?

One side of Becket's mouth tilted up in a smile. “Finish your vegetables, and there's chocolate pudding for dessert.” And he handed over that bowl, too, just to prove he wasn't a total arse. 

Chuck hauled his carcass into a more-or-less sitting position so the other two could join him on the bed. “Whatever, mate. You've got a weird bloody idea about movie snacks.” But he'd eat the spinach, wouldn't he, because not all Becket's ideas were terrible. He really wouldn't mind not being so tired all the time.

Becket sat beside Chuck, and Mako settled in between them just as the movie began to play. Max assumed his most forlorn begging expression at their feet, eyes following the progress of the popcorn bowl, and the opening melody swelled —

“ _Mulan_ , Mako? Really?!” Becket seemed dumbfounded, though Chuck had no idea why. Had he  _met_  Mako Mori? What the lady wants...

Chuck leaned forward, so he could see Becket's face. “Oi,  _mate_ ,” he hissed, making his eyes theatrically wide and raising one eyebrow. “Hush up, before she makes a man out of you!”

It didn't even make sense, as jokes go, but it earned him an open-mouthed smile from Raleigh and a good-humoured jab in the ribs from Mako. Chuck made a mental note that Mako had the sharpest elbows on the whole Pacific Rim, but still.

Totally worth it.

***

_Mulan_  turned into  _Buffy the Vampire Slayer_  turned into  _Tank Girl_  (Mako was working a theme here, Chuck was sure of it), and the defeat of those Water & Power goons saw the three jaeger pilots sprawled boneless across Chuck's bed. Their limbs were all in a tangle, there was a pile of kicked-off boots on the floor, and Mako was using Raleigh as a pillow. Chuck wasn't sure of the time, but he felt exhausted. Who knew watching ladies kick arse would be so tiring?

Well, he did, but that's mostly because he watched from very close range, given that the arse Mako was kicking was usually his. This was a different kind of tired. This was not enough red blood cells tired, too many funerals tired, the world as you know it is changing tired. Chuck wondered if he'd be able to change enough to keep up. That thought was exhausting, too. 

Sometime after Buffy burned down the gym Mako had been dispatched to get dinner (Becket was not to be trusted, after the spinach stunt), and Herc had stopped by to, he claimed, check on Max. His dad was busy these days, doing god knows what with mucky-mucks from all over. Chuck shuddered at the thought of all that politicking. He'd wondered aloud if Gipsy's pilots weren't needed for some important PR thing, but Herc had said he had it well in hand. A holiday, he said. The Rangers deserved a holiday.

So they made themselves comfortable, the three of them, in a quasi-nest/pillow fort (they'd sent Becket out for extra supplies), and the world had stayed far away for a while. The end credits rolled — weird, they were weird end credits, Mako seemed to have an endless supply of weird, really old movies. Chuck reached over to hit “stop” on the laptop. From the other end of the bed, he felt Becket make an abortive movement, and looked over to see that Mako had fallen asleep.

“We should go, leave you in peace,” Becket said softly, but he didn't sound like he meant it.

“Nah, let Mako sleep. Looks as if she could use the rest.” Chuck shifted slightly, then stared intently at his own left knee. “You can stay too, if you want. Plenty of pillows and blankets to go round.”

It felt bloody surreal, the Heroes of the K-War having an honest-to-god sleepover. But Chuck didn't feel like facing yet another empty room just now. Raleigh must not have, either, because he shuffled around to stretch out as best he could without disturbing Mako. Chuck reached out to slap the laptop closed (and poke Max on the way past. He was curled up on the floor in a purloined blanket and drooling on somebody's boot. And he  _snored_ , geez, roll over already). In the sudden dimness, Chuck found himself lying shoulder to shoulder with Raleigh Becket under a fuzzy tartan blanket. 

Raleigh Becket, childhood hero, teenage crush, heartbreaking disappointment, washed-up jaeger pilot, Wall-builder, master of the sucker punch, Hero of the Breach, savior of the world. Possibly friend.

Well. This was awkward.

And then Raleigh started telling a story about a pillow fort he once built with Yancy, about how they'd told their sister she couldn't come in and she'd gone to their mom and there had been much wailing and gnashing of teeth, and an important lesson about female agency and self-determination had been learned that day. His voice was a low, soft rumble in the dark, full of fondness and faded laughter. Chuck found himself responding with some stories about his mum, who'd been a real firecracker and who'd loved nothing more than to put smart-mouthed young sprogs in their place. They traded back and forth, memories of simpler times and loved ones long gone, and the room came alive with ghosts.

He could feel Raleigh next to him, feel his body heat radiating and the vibrations of his voice resonating in his bones. From Raleigh's other side, Mako was making tiny snorty sounds in her sleep (though neither man would acknowledge that, not even under torture, Chuck was sure). Together, they made an island of warm and safe: the room was filled with ghosts but they could not touch him here. 

Halfway though yet another story about Alaska, Chuck drifted off to sleep.

 

**Author's Note:**

> "Mulan" is a 1998 Disney animated movie about a young woman who to goes to war (dressed as a man) in order to protect her family's honor. She winds up saving all of China. Rewatching "Mulan," I couldn't help but picture Chien-Po, Ling and Yao as Raleigh, Chuck and Max, respectively.
> 
> "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" is a 1992 movie (and precursor to the TV series of the same name) about a teenage cheerleader who has been "chosen" to fight the forces of darkness; namely, by slaying vampires. With the help of her Watcher and her boyfriend, she does just that AND manages to wear the pretty dress to the big dance.
> 
> "Tank Girl" is a 1995 movie based on the graphic novel by Alan Martin and Jamie Hewlett. It's set in a post-apocalyptic outlaw future where water is power, and Tank Girl (and her friend Jet Girl) is standing up to The Man. With the help of some mutant humanoid kangaroo friends, she manages to save the girl, save the day, and free the water reserves, all in high style.
> 
> ...It is entirely possible Mako was working a theme.
> 
>  
> 
> And finally, you guys — I can spell okay, but I'm not totally familiar with stuff like plot and character. I'd really like a beta. So if any of you know the link for Betas R Us, or want to volunteer as tribute, please drop me a line!
> 
> You are of course encouraged to come visit me on [tumblr](http://z-delenda-est.tumblr.com). I have no idea what I'm doing, but more friends are always better. And I really like prompts.


End file.
